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Fines go uncollected from daycare providers

ATLANTA — Georgia regulators failed to collect fines from nearly one in five child care providers whom they punished for breaking state rules, according to an analysis Sunday by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The late fines totaled nearly $36,000, all money that would have gone into the state's general fund. The newspaper (http://bit.ly/tsTz7H ) previously reported that Georgia is less aggressive than other states in using other punishments, such as revoking a day care provider's license, for violations.

State records show that even when the Department of Early Care and Learning has fined child care providers for serious offenses, the money is not collected. Last month, at least 88 fines from the past five years were not paid. That amounted to roughly 18 percent of the 491 fines leveled during that period.

For example, authorities did not collect a $299 fine from a provider who left a 2-year-old child alone at a park after a field trip. It did not collect a $499 fine from a child care center where a microwave fell on the head of a 4-year-old, causing a head injury. A $499 fine assessed after a child care worker beat a 4-year-old with a shoe also went uncollected.

"That's unbelievable," said Sherry Poole, whose 3-year-old son wandered away from a Douglasville day care center. State records show that center, now closed, never paid its $299 fine.

"They should put some force behind it," Poole said. "They have the authority. They shouldn't just brush it underneath the carpet. It's people's children that are at stake."

DECAL Commissioner Bobby Cagle, who took office in January, said he was aware some fines had gone unpaid. He described the agency's collection rate as "not satisfactory."

After the newspaper requested the information on late fines, roughly one-quarter of the child care programs that owed money paid up or otherwise resolved their fines after being contacted by state officials. Cagle denied his department made a special push to collect fines after getting an inquiry from reporters. No fines had been paid in the previous month.

The recent surge in payments brought the balance of late fines down to roughly $27,000.